The ocean is the main source of thermal inertia in the climate system. During recent decades, ocean heat uptake has been quantified by using hydrographic temperature measurements and data from the Argo float program, which expanded its coverage after 2007. However, these estimates all use the same imperfect ocean dataset and share additional uncertainties resulting from sparse coverage, especially before 2007.

Here we provide an independent estimate by using measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2)—levels of which increase as the ocean warms and releases gases—as a whole-ocean thermometer. We show that the ocean gained 1.33 ± 0.20 × 1022 joules of heat per year between 1991 and 2016, equivalent to a planetary energy imbalance of 0.83 ± 0.11 watts per square metre of Earth’s surface. We also find that the ocean-warming effect that led to the outgassing of O2 and CO2 can be isolated from the direct effects of anthropogenic emissions and CO2 sinks.

Our result—which relies on high-precision O2 measurements dating back to 1991—suggests that ocean warming is at the high end of previous estimates, with implications for policy-relevant measurements of the Earth response to climate change, such as climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases and the thermal component of sea-level rise.

Basically, Resplandy et al. 2018 et al. are basing their estimates of the heat uptake for the “whole ocean” since 1991 on atmospheric measurements of oxygen and carbon dioxide as proxies, not on ocean temperature observations. Does one assume that “whole ocean” means from coast to coast and from ocean floor to surface? I believe so.

As far as I can tell, based on the abstract, this is not an examination of, or an attempt at correcting, global sea surface temperature records, which make up the ocean portion of the global surface temperature record. Considering that the definition of “climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases” is broadly defined by the IPCC as (my boldface) “the equilibrium global mean surface temperature change following a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration”, we must assume that the authors are referring to another definition of “climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases” in their abstract, not the broadly accepted one.

For each year during the past quarter century, the world’s oceans have absorbed an amount of heat energy that is 150 times the energy humans produce as electricity annually, according to a study led by researchers at Princeton and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego. The strong ocean warming the researchers found suggests that Earth is more sensitive to fossil-fuel emissions than previously thought.

The researchers reported in the journal Nature Nov. 1 that the world’s oceans took up more than 13 zettajoules — which is a joule, the standard unit of energy, followed by 21 zeroes — of heat energy each year between 1991 and 2016. The study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Princeton Environmental Institute.

First author Laure Resplandy, an assistant professor of geosciences and the Princeton Environmental Institute, said that her and her co-authors’ estimate is more than 60 percent higher than the figure in the 2014 Fifth Assessment Report on climate change from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Imagine if the ocean was only 30 feet deep,” said Resplandy, who was a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps. “Our data show that it would have warmed by 6.5 degrees Celsius [11.7 degrees Fahrenheit] every decade since 1991. In comparison, the estimate of the last IPCC assessment report would correspond to a warming of only 4 degrees Celsius [7.2 degrees Fahrenheit] every decade.”

How silly can Laure Resplandy be? The oceans aren’t “only 30 feet deep”, and it’s a waste of time to imagine they’re “only 30 feet deep”. According to NOAA’s National Ocean Service webpage How deep is the ocean?, on average, the oceans are about 12,100 feet deep. So the heat uptake for the “whole ocean” is spread out to depths of 12,100 feet, not “only 30 feet”. I’ll let readers do the math for the assumed temperature change for the “whole ocean”. It’s nonsense like that that gives climate scientists/activists/fifteen-minutes-of-fame seekers their bad names, and make people with common sense question the results of their papers after reading the foolish quotes in the press releases. Why? you ask. It’s very obvious that Laure Resplandy was avoiding giving the actual temperature rise of the “whole ocean” since 1991, because it’s a miniscule change in temperature.

The press release continues with discussions of policy, also undermining their paper (my boldface):

Climate sensitivity is used to evaluate allowable emissions for mitigation strategies. Most climate scientists have agreed in the past decade that if global average temperatures exceed pre-industrial levels by 2? (3.6?), it is all but certain that society will face widespread and dangerous consequences of climate change.

The researchers’ findings suggest that if society is to prevent temperatures from rising above that mark, emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas produced by human activities, must be reduced by 25 percent compared to what was previously estimated, Resplandy said.

The “2? (3.6?)” suggests Eurekalert needs proofreaders, so if you need a job…just saying. Here’s the archived link to the press release, just in case they correct the typos.

Also, as noted earlier, this paper, according to its abstract, did not attempt to estimate sea surface temperature changes; it only dealt with ocean heat uptake for the “whole ocean”. So it did not address any component of the IPCC’s broad definition of climate sensitivity, which again is (my bold and brackets) “the equilibrium global mean surface temperature change [not ocean heat uptake] following a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration”. The policy discussion in the press release, therefore, does not appear warranted by the paper’s content.

AND NOW FOR SOME MORE FUN

The mainstream media and blogosphere have ramped up their pathetic alarmist proclamations in response to Resplandy et al. 2018. Headline examples (my boldface):

Only CNN and the Daily Mail were foolish enough to repeat the “Imagine if the ocean was only 30 feet deep…” quote in their articles.

Do the authors of the headlines realize that when they claim things like “faster than scientists predicted” and “scientists find unexpected heat” they’re actually pointing out flaws in climate science?

And now for the headline that takes the prize for alarmism. The use of the word “horrific” must come from the proximity to Halloween.

[UPDATE Correction: I misread the Scientific American article. Trenberth was not a co-author of Resplandy et al. 2018. Oops.]

Kevin Trenberth of NCAR wasn’t mentioned as a co-author in the press release, so it was an unexpected treat to find Kevin Missing-Heat Trenberth was part of the paper’s team. To add icing to the cake, Scientific American interviewed him for their article The Oceans Are Heating Up Faster Than Expected (My boldface):

Kevin Trenberth of NCAR, another of that study’s co-authors, noted that because the new research constitutes a novel approach, there are some uncertainties that still need to be resolved. But he said the results are generally compatible with those of his own research.

The findings “have implications, because the planet is clearly warming and at faster rates that previously appreciated, and the oceans are the main memory of the climate system (along with ice loss),” he told E&E News by email. “The oceans account for about 92% of the Earth’s energy imbalance. This is why we are having increased bouts of strong storms (hurricanes, typhoons) and flooding events.”

Hmmm, “generally compatible with those of his own research.” I believe “generally compatible” is as weasel-wordy as weasel-wordy gets.

What seems to have eluded the authors of the articles is that the oceans can only release heat to the atmosphere at their surfaces, and surface temperatures were not addressed by Resplandy et al. 2018.

THANKS

Many thanks to Larry Kummer of FabiusMaximus.com for alerting WUWT to the paper and the overreaction by the media, and as Larry noted in his original email:

Got to love how authors today are explicit about their results being “policy-relevant.” Although that reduces my confidence in their objectivity.

Thank you, oceans, for, as “they” say, absorbing most of (more than 90%) of the heat associated with human-induced global warming.

That’s all I’ve got. And to answer someone’s possible question, I have no intention of downloading and examining Resplandy et al. 2018.

And again, thank you, Larry.

STANDARD CLOSING REQUEST

Please purchase my recently published ebooks. As many of you know, this year I published 2 ebooks that are available through Amazon in Kindle format:

To those of you who have purchased them, thank you. To those of you who will purchase them, thank you, too.

Regards,

Bob

[UPDATE: Added a bracketed correction in response to a comment.]

# # #

UPDATE 2 TO POST: I acquired a copy of the Resplandy et al. 2018 paper. So much for my intent not to examine it. Toward the end of the paper, the authors discuss how their new estimate of ocean heat uptake impacts estimates of climate sensitivity:

Ocean heat uptake, sea level and climate sensitivity. Climate sensitivity has been estimated to fall within the range of +1.5 K to +4.5 K for a doubling of CO2 (ref. 1). The impact of an increase in the ocean heat uptake on the effective equilibrium climate sensitivity (the apparent equilibrium climate sensitivity diagnosed from nonequilibrium conditions) can be estimated using a cumulative approach on the Earth energy balance (see Fig. 2 in ref. 1):

N=F−αΔT (3)

where N is the global heat imbalance, which mostly consists of the ocean heat uptake; F is the radiative forcing (in W m−2); ΔT is the increase in surface temperature (in K) above a natural steady state; and α is the climate feedback parameter (in W m−2 K−1), which is inversely proportional to the effective equilibrium climate sensitivity1. All terms in equation (3) are time integrated over the period of interest.

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report gives a ΔOHC of 0.80 × 1022 J yr−1 for 1993–2010, which is about 0.5 × 1022 J yr−1 lower than the ΔOHC that is compatible with both APO and hydrographic constraints. By applying equation (3)1 to surface temperature data over the period 1991–2016 (HadCrut4 version 4.5, ref. 64, with a 1860–1879 preindustrial baseline), we found that the upward revision of the global heat imbalance, N, by +0.5 × 1022 J yr−1 pushes up the lower bound of the equilibrium climate sensitivity from 1.5 K back to 2.0 K. An increase of the lower bound from 1.5 K to 2 K corresponds to a need to reduce maximum emissions by 25% to stay within the 2 °C global warming target (because of the almost linear relationship between warming and cumulative emissions; see Fig. SPM.10 in ref. 1). This corresponds to a reduction in maximum allowable cumulative CO2 emissions from 4,760 Gt CO2 to 3,570 Gt CO2.

157 thoughts on “FRIDAY FUNNY – At Long Last, Kevin Trenberth’s Missing Heat May Have Been Found! Repeat, May Have Been”

I cringe whenever I read non-science (or ‘nonsense’ if you prefer) phrases such as “policy-relevant measurements” in published material. They cause me to immediately start questioning everything else presented.

Policy is an element of politics, so I believe what Trenberth is (inadvertantly) admitting here, using this phrase, is that his scientific measurements are somehow “managed” to insure their “political correctness”.

Of course it is legitimate to base politics on scientific reasoning. But not the other way around, basing scientific reasoning on politics. That is corrupted science.

“Here we provide an independent estimate by using measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2)—levels of which increase as the ocean warms and releases gases—

We also find that the ocean-warming effect that led to the outgassing of O2 and CO2 can be —–

Our result— suggests that ocean warming is at the high end of previous estimates, …….. such as climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases ……”

“HA”, the 1st two (2) excerpted quotes, as noted above, rightfully claim that the temperature of the [southern] ocean waters is responsible for the biyearly cycling of atmospheric CO2 quantities ….. as well as the yearly average increase in atmospheric CO2 quantities, …….. thus proving “proof positive” that atmospheric CO2 increases/decreases always lags behind the seasonal increases/decreases in the temperature of the [southern] ocean waters.

In other words, ……. its “greenhouse gas sensitivity to climatic temperatures”.

But then the 3rd excerpted quote, as noted above, is directly contrary to the stated context of the 1st two quotes, …….. simply because it explicitly states that climate temperatures are sensitive to the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

In other words, ……. its “climatic temperature sensitivity to greenhouse gasses”.

Michael: I have been saying the same thing for years. The energy content of the oceans determines the energy content of the atmosphere not the other way round. And I have a hurricane for anyone who does not believe that.

How can heat be transferred into oceans when the evaporation goes the other way?

According to Lord Monckton, the net anthropogenic forcing as of 2018 (according to the IPCC) = 2.85 W/m^2 (includes 2/3 of negative aerosol forcing added back in). Because this supposed excess of heat each year isnt really increasing the air temperatures very much, all the alarmist climate scientists are saying that the heat is going to the oceans and eventually will come back to bite us. Trenberth ‘s famous “missing heat comment comes to mind”. I wanted to check the amount of actual heat flux that the alarmists scientists say is actually hiding in the oceans all this time. The time scale will be 1955 to 1998 because that is when the period of data that was analyzed ; ended for the important study done in 2004 and published in 2005.

with Levitus et al on Warming of the World’s Ocean 1955-2003. That study was the 1st one to actually numerate the total amount of extra forced heat flux that the atmosphere dissipated(because of global warming) to either the oceans, melting of continental glaciers, heat permanently absorbed by the troposphere, Antarctic melting, melting of mountain glaciers, melting of northern hemisphere sea ice, and melting of Arctic sea ice.

They give a figure detailing each of the above categories. The total of all categories is 17.3 x10^22 joules. By far the most important one
is the ocean absorbed heat. The authors state that it is 83.8% of the total or 14.5 X 10^22 joules for the Zero to 3000 metre depth. We will call this the OHC%. Ocean heat content % This amount came from the studies of ocean plankton!!!!!! used as a proxy for ocean temperatures. This data is apparently stored in the WORLD OCEAN DATABASE (Conkright et al 2002). In the study they state that the period of 1957 -1990 is used as a reference period for their estimates. They have had to use estmates of the linear trend for 6 ocean areas covering the globe, presumably because even though their plancton datbases contain over 2 million data points, even that is not enough to cover all 6 parts of the oceans. Of course they combine that with the old bucket and expendable bath thermograph measurements. These days all the researchers use the Argo buoy float data and the plancton based database seems to have been forgotten. It may be because of the following. I am not familiar with using plancton as a proxy for seawater temperatures as an after the fact historical measurement. However the following study says some very important things on the matter.

“Temperature does not seem to be very important in the production of phytoplankton in the sea.”

Nevertheless the author presses on to find a maximum temperature that sets an upper limit on plancton growth rates. In the study the limit on temperature seems close to 40C. It is not saying that the temperature of the water cannot exceed 40C; only that the plancton growth curve levels off after that. Using this kind of proxy to estimate sea temperatures is fraught with huge error bars, but the important point is that the supposed total of 17.3 x10^22 joules that was the result of 50 years of imaginary forcing has not gone away. Present day climate scientists are still using the OHC% figures today and the media are going along with this of course. However it is curious that over the years, the OHC% figure has crept up from 83.8% to 93% . However since the invention of the Argo float buoy data, no one talks about plancton heat studies anymore. My contention is that I will prove that the accumulated heat that was found from these studies was bogus anyway. The result will be that even though the alarmists will argue that that heat will eventually cause CAGW, they have no credible source for the amount of heat that was hidden away and they are increasingly desperate ( because of the ARGO float buoy data) to show that any modern day heat is being hidden away in the deep oceans.

The 1st study mentioned above was where the breadcrumbs ended up in my search for the now often quoted “93% OHC% of the heat radiative imbalance in the atmosphere ends up in the ocean”. This is important for the following reason. When the UHA satellite temperature data set finally nails down that there is no atmospheric warming or very little, the alarmists will fall back on their 2nd line of defense “The oceans are warming because of CO2 back radiation and we will all die from this heat when it gets released to the atmosphere from its very long cycle of deep ocean currents and heat capacity”.

So a study that can prove that the oceans are warming is important. Unfortunately for the alarmists, the ARGO ocean buoys are increasingly showing that the amount of heat increase in the oceans is so minimal as to be laughable with estimates of 400- 600 years for a 1C rise. The buoys came into existence after the top study was finished. However the 80% figure has persisted and even increased in time and every study on ocean temperatures now always quote the OHC% figure. Even though the ARGO buoys are hard to argue against for the alarmists, the oceans are so vast and deep; that they will say that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean and will some day come back to haunt us. Most ARGO floats are good for depths down to 2000 metres but the newer ones are now measuring down to 4000 metres. Every time the data comes back that there is no increase in heat for certain depths, the alarmists say that the heat has sunk even further down. That is why we skeptics will never be able to prove that the oceans are not hiding the heat because it is a perfect deep umeasurable sink for their heat global warming meme. The big problem for the alarmists is that it conflicts with the “Climate Change has already happened meme and is causing all our extreme weather events.” However my purpose here; is to show that mostly based on the top study above, the alarmists position of total heat flux hiding in the deep ocean doesn’t add up. As usual with one lie built on top of a 1000 lies, the whole meme breaks down when you really look at the data. We skeptics have 2 things on our side 1) the truth 2) there is no central body of alarmist central office coordinating all the lies so that they can fit together as 1 credible thesis of global warming. Michael Mann tries to do this but even he cant keep up with 1000’s of researchers and 100’s of organizations that every once in a while let the truth slip out or else present stats to counter the global warming groupthink.

So Let us start from the beginning of my quest for the origin of the “80-93% of missing heat is in the oceans” figure and follow the breadcrumbs back to the top study. My quest began with a June 2017 released study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences called “Distinct global warming rates tied to multiple ocean surface temperature changes”. This was dealt with in a WUWT article on June 13, 2017. The bogus main graph of that study combines the plancton data mentioned above with computer generated data for the latest years along with Hadcrut4 data. This is the study that Anthony Banton is now referring to. The authors of that Chinese study DID NOT USE ARGO FLOAT DATA by itself. Instead they used the MET office Hadcrut 4 dataset which combines HADSST3 DATA(ARGO FLOAT DATA) WITH CRUTEM4 DATA. The CRUTEM4 data is land based data. This is preposterous. Since there are almost 4000 ARGO buoys floating in all the world’s oceans , why would you combine that data with land data to give you sea temperature data? One single reason.THE ARGO FLOAT BUOY DATA DO NOT SHOW THAT THE OCEANS ARE WARMING. The latest ARGO float data have shown that the oceans are warming in some places and cooling in others with the net result that

“After an upward bump in April 2017 due to the Tropics and NH, the May SSTs show the average declining slightly. Note the Tropics recorded a rise, but not enough to offset declines in both hemispheres and globally. SH is now two months into a cooling phase. The present readings compare closely with April 2015, but currently with no indication of an El Nino event any time soon.”

The alarmists don’t like to mention the ARGO float data (Scripps dataset) because it contradicts their message. The Chinese study used computer simulations and land surface temperatures to analyze ocean temperatures????????????????????????????
I then switched my attention to a 2016 NCAR study by Trenberth himself and referred to by Anthony Banton as proof of ocean warming. In that study Trenberth attempts to show ocean heat content as increasing. However Trenberth uses 8 different datasets to try to prove this including reanalysis data simulated by models!!!!!!!!!!. The really important data are the data from the ARGO floats (Scripps dataset) which Trenberth tries to dismiss with comments like. ” Von Schuckmann et al. (2014) show how the omission of the Indonesian region in Argo analyses can miss as much as a 20% increase in global sea level. but the Argo analyses contain a lot of noise, thought to originate mainly from mesoscale eddies and details of the thermocline and its changes over time.”

What this has to do with ocean heat content is your guess. It is interesting that in Table 1 he gives the trends for the 8 different data sets except that the trend for the CERES data is missing. All in all even in the conclusions he says

“For this period, the energy imbalance is estimated to be 0.9 ± 0.3 W m−2. This includes small contributions from the non-ocean climate system components [0.04 W m−2 for 2004–08 by Trenberth (2009), 0.07 W m−2 in the 2000s increasing from about 0.03 W m−2 in the 1990s by Hansen et al. (2011), and 0.03 W m−2 from 1993 to 2008 by Church et al. (2011)] and from the deep ocean [0.07 W m−2 (Purkey and Johnson 2010)] (although ORAP5 included a 0.015 W m−2 contribution from below 2000 m). The global OHC component 0–2000 m is assessed to be 0.8 ± 0.2 W m−2. ”

So from the 8 data sets, 0.1 W /m^2 per year increase in ocean heat content is not something to worry about. Even more important is that the ARGO data set which shows the lowest overall warming over the 9 year period of 0.45W/m^2 +/- 0.1W/m^2 is dismissed because it contains a lot of noise. (See above). Don’t forget that this rate of increase of W/m^2 forcing is equivalent to 0.03C/ decade. It would be 10 times this amount if we were talking about the atmosphere but since this is the oceans a factor reduction of 10 seems more likely given the actual data for ocean warming. So a 1C increase will take 333.3 years. And that is only the top 2000 metres. The oceans can absorb much more heat in lower depths which can reach 6 miles in some places.

I then switched my attention to a 2016 NASA study that came out titled “Warming of the global Ocean : Spatial Structure and Water Mass trends”. I will dismiss that study by simply quoting from the study “To support the results from the observational datasets we analyze the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation reanalysis ……..SODA fills in the missing data by optimizing the model physics and forcing….”

Then I switched to a 2015 study by Roemmich that is titled “Unabated planetary warming and its ocean structure since 2006”. While the 2015 study is paywalled, reporters did mention a 93% OHC%. In the study the authors mention “Global mean SST has increased by about 0.1 [degrees Celsius per] decade since 1951 but has no significant trend for the period 1998-2013.” It is interesting to quote Trenberth on commenting on the 2015 study ” It is disappointing that they do not use our stuff (based on ocean reanalysis with a comprehensive model that inputs everything from SST, sea level, XBTs and Argo plus surface fluxes and winds) ” ……”It is a nice paper but sad that oceanographers are slow to utilize all of the available information to produce better estimates. They seem to take pride in… “exclusive use of Argo” data with no use of anything else, including sea level.”

So Trenberth believes that models will give a better estimate of sea water temperature than actual observations. Such is the sad state of climate alarmism today.

WUWT covered this topic in 2016 in an article criticizing another study called “15 years of ocean observations with the global Argo array”. In that 2016 study Riser claimed the 90% OHC% figure. I should also mention NASA’s contribution to this topic.

In the media article above; where Trenberth was quoted, it mentions his study in 2013. “Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content” Because of Trenberth’s penchant for using models I didnt bother reading much of his study. However he left an important breadcrumb. “Over the past 50 years, the oceans have absorbed about 90% of the total heat added to the climate system(Bindoff et al 2007).”

In Bindoff’s lead author contribution to the IPCC Assessment papers of 2007, Bindoff does not mention the OHC% content, but the other IPCC report by Lead authors Monika Rhein and Stephen Rintoul do. They say 93% again. and they left 3 more breadcrumbs 1) by Domingues 2008(for studies from 0 to 700 metres, 2) Levitus 2012 for depths from 700-2000 metres and 3) Purkey and Johnson 2010 for 2000 metres to the bottom.

Dominigues gives a total heat flux of 16+ or – 3 x 10^22 joules from 1961 to 2003 which is in the same ballpark of the 2004 Levitus study referenced in my 1st paragraph. But that figure only inculdes the top 700 metres.

Levitus 2012 was dealt with by Willis Eschenbach in a devastating critique on WUWT.

The Purkey and Johnson study left me another breadcrumb by saying ” Over the past few decades, roughly 80% of the energy resulting from this imbalance has gone into heating the oceans (Levitus et al. 2005)”

So now we have worked our way back to the study that I referenced in the 1st paragraph. The Levitus study was actually finished in 2004 but not published till January 2005.
So let us do the numbers . As you will recall in the 3rd paragraph above , the total heat content was 17.3 x10^22 joules. This a time period from 1955 to 1998. The total solar insolation assuming nearly constant of 340W/m^2 all during that time would be 2.35 x 10^26 joules based on a total earth surface of 5.1 x 10^14 m^2. This is 1358.38 times the amount of heat that got trapped ( according to the alarmists). or 3% per year. which works out to 10W/m^2 per year. Compare that to what Lord Monckton says is the present day alarmist figure of 2.85W/m^2 that is getting trapped , you can see that there is a big discrepancy. Since the total heat trapped figure was basically taken from plancton studies which are now all but forgotten because of their inaccuracies and modern day Argo buoys, it is no wonder that the alarmists do not tell you exactly how much heat is down in the Mariana trench (11000 metres deep) and elsewhere in the deep ocean hiding away. It is because they have no credible source for the amount.

As a skeptic, I dispute their present day figure of earth energy imbalance of 2.85 W/m^2 especially since the CERES data give an imbalance of 0.58 W/m^2 with an uncertainty of the total outgoing TOA of + or – 4W/m^2. I would like somebody to prove the earth energy balance equation with the parts that have had exact measurements and the parts that are only estimates. NASA figures give .5 or .6 W/m^2 which are pure fantasy based on their diagram. I accept the solar input figure of 340 W/m^2 and the atmosphere absorption of 77.1 W/m^2 and the evapotranspiration figure of 86.4 W/m^2. The outgoing figure of 240 W/m^2 is in the ballpark but impossible to say if it is balanced or not with the solar input. All other figures are only estimates or are bogus. Any thoughts?

Agreed, but two questions: does HadSST3 really use the Argo float data? I can’t find any evidence of that, but would really appreciate links to show that this is the case and, second, who is Anthony Banton … link please to his HadCRUT4 study if poss.

As a skeptic, I dispute their present day figure of earth energy imbalance of 2.85 W/m^2 especially since the CERES data give an imbalance of 0.58 W/m^2 with an uncertainty of the total outgoing TOA of + or – 4W/m^2.

So you agree with Trenberth. His point was that it was travesty that we didn’t have the ability to measure the energy balance with sufficient accuracy.

I’m late to this particular debate because I don’t have time to read everything, and I’m not up-to-speed on this particular paper. But my main comment is: tell them!

We’ve got the NYTimes, the Guardian, Washington Post, etc. There are something like 2,000 comments on the Washington Post article. Has anyone bothered to refute that article? Yes, I know it can be maddening to deal with some of those people but someone has to stand up and ask some questions, like for example:

If, according to the IPCC, the atmosphere is supposed to warm from CO2 most at about 300hPa in the tropics, which is about seven miles up, how does that heat get to the oceans? This seems to be the implication of the paper: the heat from the atmosphere has been absorbed into the oceans (and also, I might add, the oceans are releasing more CO2 which presumably would lead to more heating, etc.) If we’ve found through balloon and satellite data that the atmosphere hasn’t warmed as much as predicted by models, by what mechanism has the non-warming of the atmosphere at 300hPa has been taken up by the ocean surfaces (and then transferred to the depths)?

It would take an atmospheric temperature rise of 100 degrees to raise the temperature of the oceans one tenth of a degree. Correct me if I’m wrong. If that’s so, then why do we suppose that atmospheric temperature has any effect on ocean temperature worth mentioning? If we can measure ocean heat content changes, then how can we assume that those changes are caused by the weak heat capacity of the atmosphere transferring to the overwhelming heat capacity of the oceans? Wouldn’t it make sense to look for other candidates for ocean warming?

Are there better candidates for ocean heating that make more sense? How about solar insolation? Changes in equatorial cloud cover?

As I said I’m late to the debate and so late to make any comments, anywhere. But we need to stand up and correct some of the thinking out there.

“Global Warming” is principally the result of the “Greenhouse effect” i.e atmospheric absorption of Infra-Red radiation i.e warmer air.

This warm air has supposedly transferred most of its heat into the “Oceans”.

No, the heat in the ocean is not coming from air, but sunshine is generally responsible of that. The warm air just is supposed to lead to a higher equilibrium temperature. What happens to evaporation, cloud cover, cloud height, ocean currents etc is a source of eternao wailing rather than a consensus.

Agreed, Michael Ozanne:
According to my old slide-rule the thermal capacity of the oceans is three orders of magnitude greater than that of the atmosphere. Having observed ( living on a small Bahamian Island) how closely the air temperature is slaved to ocean surface Temperature +/- 10*F year round, I assume a pretty efficient heat exchange process at work. What then is the concern over 1,2 or even 10*F ‘global warming when it will quickly result in 0.001, 0.002 or, heaven forbid, 0.01*F rise in ocean temperature?
I also have difficulty identifying with a ‘Global mean Temperature’ … as I would with say the Global mean telephone number.
Cheers

How does the atmosphere transfer its heat into the oceans to any degree that we can measure, if the oceans have 1000x the heat capacity of the oceans, and if most atmospheric warming is supposed to happen about seven miles above the ocean surface? And if this predicted atmospheric warming hasn’t happened? Doesn’t the atmospheric heat have to be there in the first place before the oceans can gobble it up?

So I imagine that first we’d see the atmospheric hotspot, and then the atmosphere would gradually heat up, and then the oceans might absorb some of this, and the warming ocean would release more CO2 (as the study states) and this would increase the hotspot signature that we still do not see. But I fail to see how the atmosphere can warm the oceans to any extent worth measuring if IR only penetrates the barest surface of the oceans.

How long would it take for a hair dryer to warm a cold bathtub full of water? When we go to an indoor heated pool, do they heat the air and then let that transfer to the pool? When they heat the pool, do they even bother to heat the air, even in the middle of winter (I don’t know the answer to this, I’m just asking)?

What you are missing, atmospheric heat measured in C ie temperature. Now you switch to J for heat in the oceans. On what planet is Celsius a unit of energy? The two don’t even correlate, think ice water with energy being added. Once you use the wrong units your equations don’t balance and everything else is just garbage. Why don’t they claim greenhouse gasses will cause pressure to rise? Or humidity? And not mention temperature? What’s the difference? It’s that simple GIGO.

I think the Flanders and Swann humourists had it in their “Laws of Thermodynamics”:
“You can’t move heat from the cooler to the hotter –
You can try it if you like but you’d far better notter…”
From “At the Drop Of Another Hat”.

The paper itself seems to be behind a paywall. Does anyone have access? What would interest me, is how they can know that changes in ocean outgassing is due to warming and not changes in biological activity.

The premise that measuring atmospheric CO2 & O2 can determine ocean heat because warming degasses the ocean seems absurd. Sure warming degasses the ocean of CO2, but increased atmospheric CO2 pressure injects CO2. (How did CO2 get into that Coke example the author uses but by higher pressure.) It is know that atmospheric CO2 is entering oceans because that has been measured and because alarmists keep complaining that increased ocean CO2 is increasing its “acidity”. The paper says it invokes “gas solubility”, but for complex ocean chemistry that is uncertain.
Further, atmospheric and ocean CO2 are in exchange equilibrium involving natural CO2 amounts far greater than atmospheric CO2 increase. These equilibria have been altered by increasing atmospheric CO2, and these changes depend on local ocean conditions. To make an analogy to noble gases (as the paper does) is inaccurate.
Was this paper reviewed???

We might find the choice of 30 ft funny, as well as arbitrary, but it does illustrate one massively important point, usually overlooked by warmists and sceptics alike. The heat capacity of the oceans is stupendous, and utterly dwarfs that of the atmosphere. Therefore the tiniest errors in measurement (or claimed measurement) can lead to totally misleading conclusions.

There are clear and very large difficulties in assessing that heat content, and certainly in assessing any trend within it, but most of the comments so far, even those from Bob T, are a little bit unfair. I’d like to see a more considered analysis of the paper’s methodology, its possible errors, and even whether the method can be relevant. Dismissing it out of hand isn’t reasonable, even if in the end it turns out to be bunkum. As someone who is usually on the sceptical side of the debate, I cannot see any convincing reason why the heat inertia of our oceans could not mask warming – whether CO2 induced or not – for centuries.

“…why the heat inertia of our oceans could not mask warming…” Serious question, mask it as what?
“Mask” implied hiding, no? Adding heat to the ocean would most certainly result in heating of the ocean, how is that masking? Layman here, but I’m almost certain that process has been going on for more than a few hundred years. Do oceans mask cooling as well? – for centuries?

According to the late Dr Robert Stevenson, Oceanographer, the entire heat in the overlying atmosphere can be contained in the top two meters of the oceans. This enormous storage capacity enables the oceans to “buffer” any major deviations in temperature, moderating both heat and cold waves alike.

“For 15 years, [in 2000] modellers have tried to explain their lack of success in predicting global warming. The climate models had predicted a global temperature increase of 1.5°C by the year 2000, six times more than that which has taken place. Not discouraged, the modellers argue that the heat generated by their claimed “greenhouse warming effect” is being stored in the deep oceans, and that it will eventually come back to haunt us.”

“The warming is not immediate. Delays are built into the system: there are different forms of inertia here. The air warms first, then the land, then surface winds mix the shallow surface layer of the sea and finally the abyssal reaches of the ocean. The heat slowly trickles down to the deep, churned by slow overturning ocean currents. The ocean is slow to warm, but it will receive the message in time.

We have left to our children a time bomb of warming. Even if we somehow managed to halt the increase in greenhouse gases, freezing them at today’s levels, the planet’s temperature would continue to rise as the heat trickles into the deep, slowly creating a new equilibrium.

The ocean will eventually know what we have done to the atmosphere. The process is slow, but inexorable. We have committed ourselves to this warming, a legacy to future generations. We continue to burn fossil fuels and the gases they make continue to trap heat, warming the air, the land, the shallow seas [uh?]. The heat is mixed deep into the ocean, a long slow slog to equilibrium. There is no way to stop it.

What do I tell my son? A monster awaits in the deep, and someday it will come for you. We know this. We put it there.”

dennisambler: We have committed ourselves to this warming, a legacy to future generations. We continue to burn fossil fuels and the gases they make continue to trap heat, warming the air, the land, the shallow seas [uh?].

What you are missing, Dennis, is that even if (a very big if) your scenario is accurate, it’s very well known that the Milankovitch Cycles are slowly winding their way to another glaciation, which if it’s anything like the last one will almost totally destroy Canada, the UK and much of Europe and much of the USA, among other places. Nature has left to our children a time bomb of freezing, which has happened before and is almost inevitable and will wreak a devastation far more complete than any but the most extreme projections by CO2 warming alarmists. When that happens NYC, Toronto, Chicago, London and many others will be scraped away to the bedrock under kilometers of ice.
Even more alarming is the fact that life appears to be much better at sequestering CO2 than geology is at recycling it. Over geologic time atmospheric CO2 has dropped from many thousands of PPM down to an all time low of only 180 PPM during the last glaciation as biology has sequestered it in coal and oil fields and in vast areas of calcium carbonate and etc. Dover is a small but very visible example of the latter. At 150 PPM photosynthesis begins to shut down and the entire biosphere will begin to crash and die. If that were to happen in the next (inevitable) glaciation our children will crash with it. It almost happened last time.
If you really want to do something for your descendants, lobby for an energy rich, intellectually diverse, scientifically and technologically advanced society that will have the means and competence to face the inevitable challenges Earth and the universe are going to throw at them in the future. The greenie dream of a world of 500 million subsistence farmers simply can not survive the challenges nature has in store for the planet.

Very good Bill Murphy,
But why would most of the world’s current batch of politicians, bureaucrats and political functionaries be interested in future generations, when they can acquire more wealth, prestige, and some transitory fame from virtue signaling, and to kowtow at the feet of the UN, World Bank, NGOs, over-vocal climate clowns ‘scientists’, and the cAGW advocates.
As we all know, in these modern times, facts are whatever the majority ‘feel’ they should be as the computer modeled prove, they’re not defined by rigorous observations and measurements. After-all it’s only obvious that solar initiated climate cooling will happen in a generation or three — let them worry about it, we’ve got windfarms and a World Government to build.

You are correct that the ocean could conceal a vast amount of warming (or for that matter, cooling), since tiny changes in average temperature mean a vast amount of energy. But without some mechanism for that tiny change in the oceans to make large changes in the atmosphere, it doesn’t make any practical difference. If the missing heat is in the oceans, it’s not a problem.

Microwave ovens radiate at 12cm wavelength, with power output usually between 700 and 900 Watts. That’s going to put a lot more heat into your TV dinner than the heat your uncooked TV dinner is going to put into the microwave oven.

It’s also 100% more than CO² at 400ppm of the atmosphere, radiating at a few millimetres wavelength, is going to put into the oceans.

Microwaves cook food by heating the water in the food. Microwaves also penetrate cloud cover. Food, absent of water will not cook. The angle of the bond in water is what causes the wave to cause the water to warm. The specific wavelength is 2054 Mhz. The holes in the front of the microwave oven are small enough to keep the waves from escaping. You may have thought or heard how can I watch the food cook and not get cooked myself. That’s why. And as always don’t put metal objects in an operating microwave. Good for neutralizing your hard drive in case you have state secrets or porn sites you don’t won’t your wife to find out.

5. Summaries and Discussions
[29] We investigate microwave radiation from the ocean surface to observe changes of microwave radiation for various air‐sea temperature differences, by using data of the SSM/I 19 GHz and the TMI 19 and 10 GHz. To this end, we developed a method of removing the atmospheric effect contained in those data by using data of higher frequencies such as 22 and 37GHz. Modified V and H temperatures after atmospheric corrections made indicate how the ocean wind affects the brightness temperature of the ocean surface. For weak winds (below 7m/s), the V temperature does not change, but the H temperature increases; for strong winds, both V and H temperatures increase.https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2002RS002670

I’m not aware that the atmosphere, particularly the atmosphere in contact with the ocean surface, emits microwaves

Certainly does, that’s what the ‘M’ in MSU stands for (Microwave Sounding Unit). That’s the emission that Spencer et al. use to measure the atmospheric temperature. It’s in the frequency range 50-60 GHz.

@ jmorpuss
Thanks for the demonstration. That was informative. Older microwaves sometimes do leak radiation. Microwaves are not suppose to do that. ( but then why would lie, much like ‘climate change’) . I would be alarmed if you did that on a number of newer or new microwaves…
I was told by the noted solar physicist on here that the total microwave energy from the sun is “not enough to melt a snowflake”. ( Svalgaard)… I don’t know if that’s true or not. I kind of accept that not being able to refute it. However, it doesn’t feel right with the sun producing all kinds of radiation, and/or being familiar with microwaves, I also thought that an electric field or a magnetic field could either produce or funnel microwaves ( like you see in communication buildings with the cones) to a particular area (like the poles). I worked with microwaves and I’m still finding things out, sometimes completely contrary to what I had known.
I had thought previously that without an increase in temperatures, microwave energy could melt polar ice. If you take ice cubes and microwave them they will melt without an increase in air temperature, unless it is above the air temperature. Then there would be a transfer of heat. ( some of the water vapor, depending on the percentage, also heats up )
So when when you demonstrate something, I think, ” why is it doing that when it shouldn’t be” . Much like the “not enough energy to melt a snowflake”, I can be wrong. (or not.)

@ rishrac
Did you know that the first microwave over was called a RADARANGE.

Where the “radar” in Raytheon’s Radarange came from.
“As World War II came to an end, so did the market for the magnetron tubes that had been used to generate microwaves for short-range military radar. Magnetron makers like Raytheon eagerly sought new applications for the technology.
It was well known that radio waves would heat dielectric materials, and the use of dielectric heating in industrial and medical contexts was fairly common.”https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/space-age/a-brief-history-of-the-microwave-oven

But the atmosphere is still a lot less dense than the oceans, so is still sort of a moot point, isn’t it, if we are still comparing apples to apples? It will just take a little longer for that heat to wick away from the oceans through the less dense atmosphere back to space. Even if there is slightly more GHG’s in the atmosphere. The oceans are just a temporary buffer with heat both ways.

If ocean heat uptake really is 60% higher, then that means 60% greater thermal expansion. So that means much less mass increase from melting of land supported ice. So are all the papers claiming higher melt water contribution wrong, or is this paper wrong? My guess: this paper is rubbish, as is the entire premise of the study; warming water 3000 meters below the surface by 0.001C does not influence the surface exchange of CO2 and O2. Really, it’s nuts.

Bob is this the same report?
Scripps https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/new-study-identifies-thermometer-past-global-ocean “Our precision is about 0.2 ºC (0.4 ºF) now, and the warming of the past 50 years is only about 0.1 ºC,” he said, adding that advanced equipment can provide more precise measurements, allowing scientists to use this technique to track the current warming trend in the world’s oceans.”

Nope, David, it’s not the same study. The Scripps press release you linked was linked to Bereiter et al. (2018) ‘Mean global ocean temperatures during the last glacial transition’.https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25152

Since 1955, over 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases has been stored in the oceans (Figure from IPCC 5th Assessment Report). link

The CNN story also mentions the 90% figure but I wanted to nail down whether the 90% was before or after the 60% increase. The above link is more than a year old so the 90% figure refers to what was believed before the 60% increase came into the picture.

Ah Bob! You have just inadvertently solved the problem of the Pause and future cooling! The oceans have been absorbing more than 100% of the heat in the atmosphere, thereby cooling it down, Soon we will have an Ice Age on land while the oceans average out at a balmy 85F….

Just going by the abstract, doesn’t this amount to a circular argument? They say they measured CO2 and O2 to determine whole ocean temperature (ignoring phenomena like ocean upwelling, currents and temperature gradients), used that to find a very low estimate of energy imbalance compared to the canonical IPCC estimates, then attribute the temperature rise to anthropogenic CO2? Which is it, ocean outgassing as described in Henry’s law or cow farts? How do we tell the difference?

Probably it is not possible to really make sense of this without reading the whole paper, and certainly I am no climate scientist. But isn’t it more likely that the ocean is simply still responding to the natural temperature rise due to the recovery from the Little Ice Age?

I’m barely educated beyond secondary school and even I realise the stupidity of imagining all oceans being 30 feet deep then stitching it into a ‘scientific’ paper.

I mean, the latest IPCC announcement was outrageously idiotic as it was, but this is simply beyond juvenile. Nor do I understand why journalists would even entertain such drivel. The moderately well educated will be spluttering into their morning coffee as they read this in their morning papers.

But keep going IPCC, Resplandy et al. and all the other barmy contributors. You are comprehensively shooting yourself in the foot and doing the job of sceptics better than sceptics can.

The level of “barminess” is apparent on Professor Resplandy’s web page, under Research Interests, this biogeochemical oceanographer lists ocean acidification.
Nice way to advertise your ignorance Laure. Well done!

How on Earth can you distinguish between CO2 molecules from the standard cycle and those from oceanic outgassing? Sounds like witchcraft to me and the publication date may be a clue. Who knows. And what about oxygen? The anthropogenic CO2 emissions imply an antropogenic decrease of oxygen levels which then is partly restored through increased photosynthesis. At least one of these processes is quantatively uncertain. So how do the authors separate out the oceanic outgassing?

The idea of using outgassing as a proxy for temperature is in itself basically valid. They should have used Argon, and not any gas involved in complex cycles.

Problem 1. The IPCC says that the ocean is a net CO2 sink and this research implies that the ocean is a net CO2 source. I agree (Henry’s law after all) but with this argument the ‘manmade CO2 caused the warming’ has the same validity as ‘the natural warming caused the CO2’ but the latter at least has backup from the Antarctic ice-cores and basic chemistry. Plus the IPCC now has to identify these land-based CO2 sinks (or at least stop ignoring the many papers identifying them).

Problem 2: The admission; “these estimates all use the same imperfect ocean dataset” underlines the skeptic argument that NOAA pause-busters (and by extension Hadley and NASA) use only imperfect (less accurate) data and discard the less imperfect (more accurate) data in order to disappear the pause for purposes of policy rather than science. [I hate when ‘imperfect’ is used when ‘inadequate’ is meant]

Problem 3: After 2005 (according to the more accurate data) there has been virtually zero warming at the surface so like Trenberth she subscribes to the unphysical notion that the deeper ocean can absorb heat without it being detected at the surface.

And I am called a science denier for my doubts that humans are the main cause of the climate we have today. I merely ask them to explain some historic facts like when Greenland was settled by farmers and herdsmen. But this study is pure quackery.

Another unicorns and chartreuse flying elephants pretense of a study that alleges to measure indirect atmosphere components, ignores all other sources for atmospheric O² and CO₂; then runs a modeling program to generate their self satisfaction fantasies.

“Here we provide an independent estimate by using measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2)—levels of which increase as the ocean warms and releases gases—as a whole-ocean thermometer. We show that the ocean gained 1.33 ± 0.20 × 1022 joules of heat per year between 1991 and 2016, equivalent to a planetary energy imbalance of 0.83 ± 0.11 watts per square metre of Earth’s surface. We also find that the ocean-warming effect that led to the outgassing of O2 and CO2 can be isolated from the direct effects of anthropogenic emissions and CO2 sinks.”

Once again, temperature numbers are converted into work heat numbers to falsely inflate the numerical scale and hide the use of temperature numbers below instrumental measurement capabilities or well within error bounds. Another silly climate shell game designed to hide their manipulating reality.

The authors release their absurd study that produces and cites nonsense from a model based upon indirect assumptions developed from measurements isolated from the temperatures they are allegedly reporting.

“Kevin Trenberth of NCAR, another of that study’s co-authors, noted that because the new research constitutes a novel approach, there are some uncertainties that still need to be resolved. But he said the results are generally compatible with those of his own research.”

1) This is known as starting a study from a “Confirmation Bias” basis.
2) This alleged study is not ‘independent’! That Trenberth is involved at all highlights the study’s conflicts of interests and lack of unbiased intent.

A) “because the new research constitutes a novel approach” is absurd.
– i) When researchers and experts are unable to explain atmospheric chemistry and molecular relationships and unable to explain Ocean chemistry and molecular relationships, they claim measuring minute changes in the atmosphere allows them to define miniscule changes in the ocean…
All without confirmation, evidence or any sort of verification.

It is a pathetic fantasy!

Add in SA’s Trenberth absurd quotes:

“The findings “have implications, because the planet is clearly warming”

Right in line with natural warming as Earth recovers from the LIA.

” and at faster rates that previously appreciated”

Utterly fallacious!

“and the oceans are the main memory of the climate system (along with ice loss),” he told E&E News by email.”

“Kevin Trenberth of NCAR, another of that study’s co-authors, noted that because the new research constitutes a novel approach, there are some uncertainties that still need to be resolved. But he said the results are generally compatible with those of his own research.”
1) This is known as starting a study from a “Confirmation Bias” basis.
2) This alleged study is not ‘independent’! That Trenberth is involved at all highlights the study’s conflicts of interests and lack of unbiased intent.

You are mistaken, the study with which Trenberth is associated is not the one which is the subject of this thread.

Sounds just like the rejection of, you know, temperature readings taken by instruments designed to, you know, tell you the temperature, with temperatures “inferred” by “wind speeds,” because they didn’t like the (actual) temperature data – it didn’t show the non-existent “tropospheric hot spot,” and that was becoming, you know, “inconvenient.”

Even if there “hidden heat in the ocean” tripe were true, it has a much better explanation – a slight percentage reduction in cloud cover allowed more sunshine to warm the oceans (and the sun can ACTUALLY WARM THE OCEANS, unlike CO2 “backradiation” IR that can’t penetrate beyond a few MICRONS of the surface).

I’m actually starting to take some twisted joy in this foaming-at-the-mouth, batshit crazy, self-conflicting lunacy the Climate Nazis are starting to produce. It’s getting so ridiculous that maybe some of those deluded believers will actually start to understand that the whole “story” is nonsense and start becoming skeptical themselves.

More likely they’re using 7-bit ASCII (no “degree” symbol, ‘°’ !) and their software managed to replace those characters in the string “2°C (3.6°F)” with “‘?’ + delete the next character because I’m confused” when it got there.

As programmed by the reincarnation of the countess of Lovelace (in ADA, obviously) ?

If the oceans were warming then we would be able to see trends that reflect this in the historical temperature records of the Azores. The Azores have a stable daily temperature range that seasonally shifts within a slightly broader stable annual temperature range. This would be a simple exercise to prove their theory.

Is there such a thing as a thermocline in oceans? I know they occur in inland lakes. I seem to recall that submarines use thermoclines to avoid detection. Diving under the thermocline prevented sonar detection.

Even if the ‘missing heat’ went into the ocean somehow, would it make any difference to anything anywhere that could even be measured? Even if it were somehow mixed and is spread out on average over 326 million cubic miles of ocean water? With an average depth of 12,000 feet, covering 71% of the surface of the earth, the oceans would only gain .015 C if all things being equal, that 6 C degree raise if the oceans 30 feet deep were extrapolated over the entire volume. And that is even if you trust anything the paper says about how much heat was actually accumulated into the ocean thermal inertia. Where did they get those numbers from with any confidence?

If the average temperature of the ocean is currently 3.9 C, (that is what wiki says) an increase of .015 C on average is still a rounding error. I am not sure it could even be measured accurately or it would have any actual consequence even if were true, because it would be homogenized throughout the entire water column. Or tell us where is the heat still hiding? Anyway, I thought this is what the ocean was supposed to do was absorb slightly more heat if there is more heating from sunlight, and slowly give that heat up to the atmosphere and ultimately the universe when there is less sunlight due to clouds, and the other mechanisms. The oceans don’t absorb much energy from the back radiation of GHG. The oceans are a big buffer on any small changes in the scheme of things in retaining, gaining or shedding any differential heating. Everything is working as it supposed to. I am not going to lose any sleep over this, in fact, will sleep better if there is actually any warming. I hate the cold and so should everyone else.

Well if plant food doesn’t float your boat you can never be too careful with oxygen pollution as it’s heady stuff-
“Here we provide an independent estimate by using measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2)—levels of which increase as the ocean warms and releases gases”

I wish I had the reference right at my fingertips, but I can still see (in my mind) Heidi Cullen, testifying before Congress, that the “heat” was hiding in the, ” … deep ocean … “. We can argue all day long about what constitutes ‘deep’ ocean, but it seems to me that any reasonable person is going to consider, let us say, more than 500 metres, and beyond, as being close to ‘deep’.

If memory serves (from watching the Hovmollers on the ENSO page, the floating buoys only go down to about 400 or 450 metres, so all of the “hidden heat” would have to be sequestered somewhere below that (thusly inventing the brand-new branch of Physics, called “Thermostatics”).

Let’s see: the warmer ocean water outgasses more carbon dioxide, but more carbon dioxide is going into the oceans making them acidic — — — oh wait! I forgot!!! Thermostatics is going to change the solubility ratio of the piping hot abyssal ocean water, or something like that … … …

Whew! So glad I put two and two together and got d/dx [e^(u + v) du/dx * dv/dx! I was SERIOUSLY worried there!

How are excited atmospheric CO2 molecules warming the ‘entire oceans’ without warming the atmosphere at all. The warming in the atmosphere came FROM the oceans in the form of super El Ninos. Outside of the El Nino bumps, the atmospheric temperature has been nearly flat for 20 years!

This line of insanity in the AGW meme is particularly galling, because these are the same people who entirely dismiss most natural climate variability (which we absolutely know exists) because WE DON’T COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THE MECHANISM of how it works! Yet they have no trouble embracing he magical thinking that is required to even consider this concept of atmospheric warming ‘hiding’ in the oceans!

If you are upset, best to respond to all the commentators on Washington Post, etc. Don’t tell us; we know.

Some guidelines for commenting on mainstream media:
1. Don’t get upset. These people have been brainwashed. Your job is to talk common sense at as close to grade-school level as you can.
2. Don’t let name-calling bother you. Ad hominem attacks are favored by those who have a hard time thinking for themselves.
3. Don’t call names.
4. Don’t get upset. Be patient.
5. If it starts to get to you, stop. You’ve done something at least, so thanks.

Even if the insulters come out in force, it helps other people to see that there’s more than just one or two people who disagree with the consensus. In my experience, sometimes you can talk so much sense into them that they have no response. Rare, yes, but it happens. And then you get them to thinking ….

Want to help stop the BS? Get out there and fight on the mainstream media, as much as you can and as much as you can stomach. Just don’t sabotage your efforts by resorting to insults.

What I found striking is the authors’ assumption that the increase in atmospheric O2 (and CO2) MUST have come from the sea.

1. I thought the meme is that atmospheric CO2 comes totally from burning fossil fuels.

2. Wouldn’t you expect the “greening of the earth” (widely reported) due to increase atmospheric CO2) would result in MORE OXYGEN in the air as a result of increase photosynthesis (middle school biology lessons)? The authors seemed not to consider this.

It gets worse than that! They state: “APO (O2+1.1×CO2) is computed using observed atmospheric O2/N2 molar ratios and CO2 molar fractions (see Methods)6,19. By design, APO is insensitive to exchanges with land ecosystems, which produce changes in O2 and CO2 that largely cancel in APO owing to their APPROXIMATE 1.1 O2/C oxidative ratio.” That is they are using an estimate with two significant figures in a calculation reporting a number with 5 significant figures (−243.70 ±10.10. Further, they show a 1 sigma uncertainty to two significant figures to the right of the decimal point. They should have reported “-240 ±10.” They are ignoring the rules about reporting precision.

Later, they state, ” From equation (1), we thereby find that ∆APO Climate = 23.20 ±12.20 per meg,…” That is, their 1 sigma uncertainty is ±52% of the calculated ∆APO Climate. It should really be reported as 23 ±12. They are kidding themselves the pretend that the digits beyond the decimal point have any meaning. Even the units column is questionable. But, it looks like maybe they know what they are doing.

Wait, wot?! Atmospheric O2 levels are decreasing, right? So this paper purports to take the

“measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2)—levels of which increase as the ocean warms and releases gases”

and reconstructs ocean heat content with that data? Using a formula with

“ΔT is the increase in surface temperature (in K) above a natural steady state” when delta T is change in temperature since 1991 and the temperature of Earth in 1991 is considered a natural steady state?

Climastrology is becoming so fictional that it is really hard to tell what they are doing here. How did they differentiate degassed CO2 from emitted CO2? Last I checked, Henry’s Law did not involve isotopes or “man-made” gas vs natural gases. How did they determine heat content for degased O2 when O2 has actually slightly decreased? How did they dream up heat content change per change in partial pressure of these gases in the atmosphere and how did they consider ocean oscillations which bring bottom waters to the surface which may have last been exposed to the surface 1,000 years ago?

An energy imbalance of .83 watts +/- .11….wow…..I’m pretty sure you can achieve such accuracy in a laboratory, but not on any number of square meters you might pick on planet Earth’s mountains, plains, oceans, forests. You would be lucky if the standard deviation of the various readings was 20 watts/sq. meter. So declaring .83 to be the “answer” just means you believe your average is accurate to 1/10,000 of incoming solar and have forgotten reality.

From the scientific? paper, as quoted in the 2nd update:[…] pushes up the lower bound of the equilibrium climate sensitivity from 1.5 K back to 2.0 K. An increase of the lower bound from 1.5 K to 2 K corresponds to a need to reduce maximum emissions by 25% to stay within the 2 °C global warming target (because of the almost linear relationship between warming and cumulative emissions; see Fig. SPM.10 in ref. 1)

It is absolutely amazing the feeling of total impunity that these guys must have to think that they couldn get away with something as ridiculous as this claim is which shows a totally false, disingenuous, understanding of how the maximum emissions were calculated in the first place (nothing to do with “lower bounds of equilibrium sensitivity”). And even more amazing that they did, indeed, get away with it. This shouldn’t pass any peer review. The system has been sooooo corrupted.

First thing I conclude from this is:
Previous statements about ocean heat content from this “settled” science must have been hopelessly inadequate
Second thing:
Across most of the planet the ocean surface temperature is lower than the temperature of the atmosphere directly above it = 0 heat transfer from ocean to atmosphere.
Third thing:
If the oceans have warmed that much ( they haven’t) then they must have expanded, meaning the sea level rise that also mostly isn’t real must not be from melting ice
Fourth thing:
More flow from an endless supply of high grade fertilizer.

Well, I lied — I think I drudged on, til I got to the claim about being able to separate ocean CO2 outgassing from the human CO2 signal, or something like that, … at which point, I thought to myself, “Really — that’s quite a claim, and I doubt it.”

I don’t know but know enough to know that almost every component making up the ocean has wide variation. So how does one establish meaningful means through high precision measurement over time? The instruments may be high precision but are the results?

Of course as another poster has pointed out they are using circular reasoning to wit: Oceans are putting more CO2 into atmosphere which is causing more heating of atmosphere which is somehow getting back to the oceans (mechanism not explained) which then transfers heat to atmosphere. Which is it ? Does CO2 cause heating or does heat cause more CO2 in the atmosphere? Under their scenario, mankind’s puny addition of 4% input of CO2 into the atmosphere wouldn’t matter. This is not even junk science. IT IS ALICE IN WONDERLAND STUFF.

I am definitely not endorsing the article, but if anyone wants to delve into more technical details of some of the procedures being applied, especially the use of Atmospheric Potential Oxygen (APO), I suggest the following earlier paper (also involving Ralph Keeling, not paywalled):

According to Lord Monckton, the net anthropogenic forcing as of 2018 (according to the IPCC) = 2.85 W/m^2 (includes 2/3 of negative aerosol forcing added back in). Because this supposed excess of heat each year isnt really increasing the air temperatures very much, all the alarmist climate scientists are saying that the heat is going to the oceans and eventually will come back to bite us. Trenberth ‘s famous “missing heat comment comes to mind”. I wanted to check the amount of actual heat flux that the alarmists scientists say is actually hiding in the oceans all this time. The time scale will be 1955 to 1998 because that is when the period of data that was analyzed ; ended for the important study done in 2004 and published in 2005.

with Levitus et al on Warming of the World’s Ocean 1955-2003. That study was the 1st one to actually numerate the total amount of extra forced heat flux that the atmosphere dissipated(because of global warming) to either the oceans, melting of continental glaciers, heat permanently absorbed by the troposphere, Antarctic melting, melting of mountain glaciers, melting of northern hemisphere sea ice, and melting of Arctic sea ice.

They give a figure detailing each of the above categories. The total of all categories is 17.3 x10^22 joules. By far the most important one
is the ocean absorbed heat. The authors state that it is 83.8% of the total or 14.5 X 10^22 joules for the Zero to 3000 metre depth. We will call this the OHC%. Ocean heat content % This amount came from the studies of ocean plankton!!!!!! used as a proxy for ocean temperatures. This data is apparently stored in the WORLD OCEAN DATABASE (Conkright et al 2002). In the study they state that the period of 1957 -1990 is used as a reference period for their estimates. They have had to use estmates of the linear trend for 6 ocean areas covering the globe, presumably because even though their plancton datbases contain over 2 million data points, even that is not enough to cover all 6 parts of the oceans. Of course they combine that with the old bucket and expendable bath thermograph measurements. These days all the researchers use the Argo buoy float data and the plancton based database seems to have been forgotten. It may be because of the following. I am not familiar with using plancton as a proxy for seawater temperatures as an after the fact historical measurement. However the following study says some very important things on the matter.

“Temperature does not seem to be very important in the production of phytoplankton in the sea.”

Nevertheless the author presses on to find a maximum temperature that sets an upper limit on plancton growth rates. In the study the limit on temperature seems close to 40C. It is not saying that the temperature of the water cannot exceed 40C; only that the plancton growth curve levels off after that. Using this kind of proxy to estimate sea temperatures is fraught with huge error bars, but the important point is that the supposed total of 17.3 x10^22 joules that was the result of 50 years of imaginary forcing has not gone away. Present day climate scientists are still using the OHC% figures today and the media are going along with this of course. However it is curious that over the years, the OHC% figure has crept up from 83.8% to 93% . However since the invention of the Argo float buoy data, no one talks about plancton heat studies anymore. My contention is that I will prove that the accumulated heat that was found from these studies was bogus anyway. The result will be that even though the alarmists will argue that that heat will eventually cause CAGW, they have no credible source for the amount of heat that was hidden away and they are increasingly desperate ( because of the ARGO float buoy data) to show that any modern day heat is being hidden away in the deep oceans.

The 1st study mentioned above was where the breadcrumbs ended up in my search for the now often quoted “93% OHC% of the heat radiative imbalance in the atmosphere ends up in the ocean”. This is important for the following reason. When the UHA satellite temperature data set finally nails down that there is no atmospheric warming or very little, the alarmists will fall back on their 2nd line of defense “The oceans are warming because of CO2 back radiation and we will all die from this heat when it gets released to the atmosphere from its very long cycle of deep ocean currents and heat capacity”.

So a study that can prove that the oceans are warming is important. Unfortunately for the alarmists, the ARGO ocean buoys are increasingly showing that the amount of heat increase in the oceans is so minimal as to be laughable with estimates of 400- 600 years for a 1C rise. The buoys came into existence after the top study was finished. However the 80% figure has persisted and even increased in time and every study on ocean temperatures now always quote the OHC% figure. Even though the ARGO buoys are hard to argue against for the alarmists, the oceans are so vast and deep; that they will say that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean and will some day come back to haunt us. Most ARGO floats are good for depths down to 2000 metres but the newer ones are now measuring down to 4000 metres. Every time the data comes back that there is no increase in heat for certain depths, the alarmists say that the heat has sunk even further down. That is why we skeptics will never be able to prove that the oceans are not hiding the heat because it is a perfect deep umeasurable sink for their heat global warming meme. The big problem for the alarmists is that it conflicts with the “Climate Change has already happened meme and is causing all our extreme weather events.” However my purpose here; is to show that mostly based on the top study above, the alarmists position of total heat flux hiding in the deep ocean doesn’t add up. As usual with one lie built on top of a 1000 lies, the whole meme breaks down when you really look at the data. We skeptics have 2 things on our side 1) the truth 2) there is no central body of alarmist central office coordinating all the lies so that they can fit together as 1 credible thesis of global warming. Michael Mann tries to do this but even he cant keep up with 1000’s of researchers and 100’s of organizations that every once in a while let the truth slip out or else present stats to counter the global warming groupthink.

So Let us start from the beginning of my quest for the origin of the “80-93% of missing heat is in the oceans” figure and follow the breadcrumbs back to the top study. My quest began with a June 2017 released study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences called “Distinct global warming rates tied to multiple ocean surface temperature changes”. This was dealt with in a WUWT article on June 13, 2017. The bogus main graph of that study combines the plancton data mentioned above with computer generated data for the latest years along with Hadcrut4 data. This is the study that Anthony Banton is now referring to. The authors of that Chinese study DID NOT USE ARGO FLOAT DATA by itself. Instead they used the MET office Hadcrut 4 dataset which combines HADSST3 DATA(ARGO FLOAT DATA) WITH CRUTEM4 DATA. The CRUTEM4 data is land based data. This is preposterous. Since there are almost 4000 ARGO buoys floating in all the world’s oceans , why would you combine that data with land data to give you sea temperature data? One single reason.THE ARGO FLOAT BUOY DATA DO NOT SHOW THAT THE OCEANS ARE WARMING. The latest ARGO float data have shown that the oceans are warming in some places and cooling in others with the net result that

“After an upward bump in April 2017 due to the Tropics and NH, the May SSTs show the average declining slightly. Note the Tropics recorded a rise, but not enough to offset declines in both hemispheres and globally. SH is now two months into a cooling phase. The present readings compare closely with April 2015, but currently with no indication of an El Nino event any time soon.”

The alarmists don’t like to mention the ARGO float data (Scripps dataset) because it contradicts their message. The Chinese study used computer simulations and land surface temperatures to analyze ocean temperatures????????????????????????????
I then switched my attention to a 2016 NCAR study by Trenberth himself and referred to by Anthony Banton as proof of ocean warming. In that study Trenberth attempts to show ocean heat content as increasing. However Trenberth uses 8 different datasets to try to prove this including reanalysis data simulated by models!!!!!!!!!!. The really important data are the data from the ARGO floats (Scripps dataset) which Trenberth tries to dismiss with comments like. ” Von Schuckmann et al. (2014) show how the omission of the Indonesian region in Argo analyses can miss as much as a 20% increase in global sea level. but the Argo analyses contain a lot of noise, thought to originate mainly from mesoscale eddies and details of the thermocline and its changes over time.”

What this has to do with ocean heat content is your guess. It is interesting that in Table 1 he gives the trends for the 8 different data sets except that the trend for the CERES data is missing. All in all even in the conclusions he says

“For this period, the energy imbalance is estimated to be 0.9 ± 0.3 W m−2. This includes small contributions from the non-ocean climate system components [0.04 W m−2 for 2004–08 by Trenberth (2009), 0.07 W m−2 in the 2000s increasing from about 0.03 W m−2 in the 1990s by Hansen et al. (2011), and 0.03 W m−2 from 1993 to 2008 by Church et al. (2011)] and from the deep ocean [0.07 W m−2 (Purkey and Johnson 2010)] (although ORAP5 included a 0.015 W m−2 contribution from below 2000 m). The global OHC component 0–2000 m is assessed to be 0.8 ± 0.2 W m−2. ”

So from the 8 data sets, 0.1 W /m^2 per year increase in ocean heat content is not something to worry about. Even more important is that the ARGO data set which shows the lowest overall warming over the 9 year period of 0.45W/m^2 +/- 0.1W/m^2 is dismissed because it contains a lot of noise. (See above). Don’t forget that this rate of increase of W/m^2 forcing is equivalent to 0.03C/ decade. It would be 10 times this amount if we were talking about the atmosphere but since this is the oceans a factor reduction of 10 seems more likely given the actual data for ocean warming. So a 1C increase will take 333.3 years. And that is only the top 2000 metres. The oceans can absorb much more heat in lower depths which can reach 6 miles in some places.

I then switched my attention to a 2016 NASA study that came out titled “Warming of the global Ocean : Spatial Structure and Water Mass trends”. I will dismiss that study by simply quoting from the study “To support the results from the observational datasets we analyze the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation reanalysis ……..SODA fills in the missing data by optimizing the model physics and forcing….”

Then I switched to a 2015 study by Roemmich that is titled “Unabated planetary warming and its ocean structure since 2006”. While the 2015 study is paywalled, reporters did mention a 93% OHC%. In the study the authors mention “Global mean SST has increased by about 0.1 [degrees Celsius per] decade since 1951 but has no significant trend for the period 1998-2013.” It is interesting to quote Trenberth on commenting on the 2015 study ” It is disappointing that they do not use our stuff (based on ocean reanalysis with a comprehensive model that inputs everything from SST, sea level, XBTs and Argo plus surface fluxes and winds) ” ……”It is a nice paper but sad that oceanographers are slow to utilize all of the available information to produce better estimates. They seem to take pride in… “exclusive use of Argo” data with no use of anything else, including sea level.”

So Trenberth believes that models will give a better estimate of sea water temperature than actual observations. Such is the sad state of climate alarmism today.

WUWT covered this topic in 2016 in an article criticizing another study called “15 years of ocean observations with the global Argo array”. In that 2016 study Riser claimed the 90% OHC% figure. I should also mention NASA’s contribution to this topic.

In the media article above; where Trenberth was quoted, it mentions his study in 2013. “Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content” Because of Trenberth’s penchant for using models I didnt bother reading much of his study. However he left an important breadcrumb. “Over the past 50 years, the oceans have absorbed about 90% of the total heat added to the climate system(Bindoff et al 2007).”

In Bindoff’s lead author contribution to the IPCC Assessment papers of 2007, Bindoff does not mention the OHC% content, but the other IPCC report by Lead authors Monika Rhein and Stephen Rintoul do. They say 93% again. and they left 3 more breadcrumbs 1) by Domingues 2008(for studies from 0 to 700 metres, 2) Levitus 2012 for depths from 700-2000 metres and 3) Purkey and Johnson 2010 for 2000 metres to the bottom.

Dominigues gives a total heat flux of 16+ or – 3 x 10^22 joules from 1961 to 2003 which is in the same ballpark of the 2004 Levitus study referenced in my 1st paragraph. But that figure only inculdes the top 700 metres.

Levitus 2012 was dealt with by Willis Eschenbach in a devastating critique on WUWT.

The Purkey and Johnson study left me another breadcrumb by saying ” Over the past few decades, roughly 80% of the energy resulting from this imbalance has gone into heating the oceans (Levitus et al. 2005)”

So now we have worked our way back to the study that I referenced in the 1st paragraph. The Levitus study was actually finished in 2004 but not published till January 2005.
So let us do the numbers . As you will recall in the 3rd paragraph above , the total heat content was 17.3 x10^22 joules. This a time period from 1955 to 1998. The total solar insolation assuming nearly constant of 340W/m^2 all during that time would be 2.35 x 10^26 joules based on a total earth surface of 5.1 x 10^14 m^2. This is 1358.38 times the amount of heat that got trapped ( according to the alarmists). or 3% per year. which works out to 10W/m^2 per year. Compare that to what Lord Monckton says is the present day alarmist figure of 2.85W/m^2 that is getting trapped , you can see that there is a big discrepancy. Since the total heat trapped figure was basically taken from plancton studies which are now all but forgotten because of their inaccuracies and modern day Argo buoys, it is no wonder that the alarmists do not tell you exactly how much heat is down in the Mariana trench (11000 metres deep) and elsewhere in the deep ocean hiding away. It is because they have no credible source for the amount.

As a skeptic, I dispute their present day figure of earth energy imbalance of 2.85 W/m^2 especially since the CERES data give an imbalance of 0.58 W/m^2 with an uncertainty of the total outgoing TOA of + or – 4W/m^2. I would like somebody to prove the earth energy balance equation with the parts that have had exact measurements and the parts that are only estimates. NASA figures give .5 or .6 W/m^2 which are pure fantasy based on their diagram. I accept the solar input figure of 340 W/m^2 and the atmosphere absorption of 77.1 W/m^2 and the evapotranspiration figure of 86.4 W/m^2. The outgoing figure of 240 W/m^2 is in the ballpark but impossible to say if it is balanced or not with the solar input. All other figures are only estimates or are bogus.

“Got to love how authors today are explicit about their results being ‘policy-relevant.’ Although that reduces my confidence in their objectivity.”

This is an important subject, which I have long wanted to write about. This points to a major weaknesses in current climate science – and why I suspect it eventually might be considered as the worst-affected by the replication crisis.

Climate science has a abundance of observational data, both instrumental and proxies. There are a fantastic array of statistical tools to manipulate this data (esp since few climate scientists are statisticians, and so can use them in ways that statisticians consider inappropriate).

They run countless “tests”. The ones with results that are deemed “policy relevant” are published. The others are discarded. This is guaranteed to produce a flood of invalid results. It is “data dredging”, aka “p-hacking.” It is climate science today.

The missing heat also needs to evaporate more water before it can contribute to any (putative) feedback effects. It can’t evaporate water below the surface, it must heat the atmosphere first. It can’t skip the warming the atmosphere bit and hang out in the ocean to do its feedbacking at some later date when it staggers back out of the ocean.

And as others often point out, with the ocean warming the atmosphere, once the heat is in the ocean at a small increase ΔT in bulk temperature, you are not going to heat the atmosphere by say Δ2.0 °C with an oceanic change of Δ0.1 °C.

That’s a great comment, and worthy of real consideration. But, as so often, there is an escape clause ..
The difference between ocean and air temperatures is only an AVERAGE. Some places the atmosphere is warmer, some places cooler. The heat, and convective, exchanges in the arctic are way different to those in the tropics. Different mechanisms, and different net results, pertain to those different areas.

“The oceans account for about 92% of the Earth’s energy imbalance. This is why we are having increased bouts of strong storms (hurricanes, typhoons) and flooding events.”

Is Trenberth basing his comments on science? The overall number of tropical storms or hurricanes have decreased. So how does he defend saying that we are having increased bouts of such storms?
A google search displayed the following comment without attribution:

“…there is some indication from high resolution models of substantial increases in the numbers of the most intense hurricanes even if the overall number of tropical storms or hurricanes decreases. Jun 6, 2018”

So does Trenberth’s assertion of “increased bouts of strong storms” come from models rather than actual observations? Do observations show that the number of intense storms are actually increasing?

” We also find that the ocean-warming effect that led to the outgassing of O2 and CO2 can be isolated from the direct effects of anthropogenic emissions and CO2 sinks.”

No they can’t. They can’t even determine why most if not all of the increased production co2 is unaccounted for since 1997.
“….. an independent estimate by using measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2)—levels of which increase as the ocean warms and releases gases—as a whole-ocean thermometer.”

An apparent contradiction, or obvious. Oceans don’t uptake more co2 or o2 as they get warmer. The oceans can not be more acidic and warmer at the same time. Now if the oceans are getting cooler, then yes, there certainly would be more uptake. You can see the jump in co2 ppm/v per year anomaly in 1998 when it was warmer and the increase was above man made production.

I agree with you. The 1998 certainly shows this.
But, even better the more recent El Nino.
Take a look here:http://climate4you.com/
On the opening page, look under Key Updates and click on the last item “Temperature and CO2”. Temperature increased, CO2 followed.

Its was a ‘good article ‘ not because it has scientific validity but because it got ‘headlines ‘ and that is mark of ‘quality ‘ climate ‘science’ uses .
The trouble is to get your head around the fact that which is abnormal to other sciences are ‘normal ‘ in this area .

The first thing that I noticed with the stories about this new paper is that they never quantified the actual temperature increase. Right away I knew it was too small to be impactful either on the climate or on public opinion.

“have absorbed an amount of heat energy that is 150 times the energy humans produce as electricity annually”

That tiny, eh? What happened with the standard climastrological Hiroshima bombs unit?

Besides weasel words (the more they use, the more cargo cultist the ‘science’ is), another measure of how pseudo scientific a ‘study’ is can be the units of measure used.
In sciences, there is SI and some ‘tolerated’ units, in pseudo sciences, there are all sorts of lunacies…

Yesterday I read the subject article in the San Jose Mercury News (front page) and it had all the hallmarks of a the chic climate-change argument:
1. Missing heat explained.
2. Much worse than we all thought and it’s going to get worse!
3. Must act now! Policy changes desperately needed.
4. More study needed to confirm.

Being a layman on the subject yet very suspicious, I knew I could come here and learn something that would make me understand it better (and support my suspicions). Thank you all for the intelligent and educational posts. Now I’m looking forward to the soon to be published letters to San Jose Mercury News editors that reference this article and demand that we do something. Most of the them will be from concerned citizens that live in a +10,000 square foot Palo Alto or Atherton home.

The more we see this type of “study” being held up as confirmation of AGW, the more it shoots the warmists in the foot.

“So, we can tell the oceans are hotter than thought because of the amount of CO² they’ve released to the atmosphere. The reason they’ve heated and released more CO² to the atmosphere is… because… there’s… more CO² in the atmosphere. We know it’s from the oceans because… erm… yeah. If the oceans weren’t hotter than thought, i.e. what the ARGO buoys, by far our best measurements, record, it would mean that the climate sensitivity to CO² as per IPCC and associated models is overstated, and that humanity’s contribution to warming via CO² is less than repeatedly pronounced. That can’t be the case, Shirley? No, the heat enters the top micron of the oceans and goes straight past the ARGO ranges to the mysterious depths, without any being evaporated into those hurricanes that are worse than evah.”

“Simultaneously, the oceans are acidifying because there’s more CO² in them, because… there’s… more CO² in the atmosphere. CO² goes from ocean to atmosphere, from atmosphere to ocean, ad infinitum, constantly warming both of them and making ocean pH plummet…”

How long before the details are airbrushed but a 60% greater increase in ocean warming is tuned into most climate models?

As I understand it, they have estimated the temperature of the oceans by measuring the ratio of CO2 to O2 above the oceans and inferring the amount of extra CO2 outgassed by the oceans as a result of increased warming.
Yet hasn’t the hypothesis of isotropic distribution of CO2 been disproved? Didn’t we find ‘rivers of CO2’ in the atmosphere? And if so, surely their calculations are location-dependent.
I’d love to know what allowance they made for vertical mixing of ‘extra’ CO2 in the atmosphere and adjustments for locations of cities etc.

In case anyone is interested … this is what the O2/N2 and CO2 atmospheric data look like at the South Pole. The “seasonally adjusted” comment refers to the data (as adjusted and supplied by Scripps) that have had the annual seasonal cycle removed in order to highlight the longer term trends. Other observatories show the same thing (with minor differences in gradient):

For comparison, the data from Alert, on the north coast of Canada and about 500 miles from the North Pole, show a gradient of -10.369 and R squared of 0.9977. My apologies for missing the δ off the graph – should read δ(O2/N2) as these numbers are relative to a reference value (common practice where the absolute values are extremely small numbers). Data are from the Scripps O2 program: http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu/, where you can also find plots of the data for multiple observatories without removal of the seasonal cycle (http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu/plots).

The gradients of changes in the atmosphere are equivalent to a -O2:CO2 exchange ratio of 2.2 to 2.3, in comparison to 1.1 for the terrestrial biosphere and an estimated 1.4 for burning fossil fuels (which is dependent on the mix of fuels).

Huh? 6.2 degrees if only 30 feet is about 0.003 degrees for the whole ocean. If they really could measure global CO2 level to 0.1 ppm, they still have an error of at least 0.3% for the outgassing component (seasonal variation is about 7-9 ppm at ML). The conclusion should be insignificant warming.

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